Wife, mother of kidnap-slaying suspect arrested

Wife, mother of kidnap-slaying suspect arrested

May 9th, 2012 in News

GUNTOWN, Miss. (AP) - The net widened Tuesday in the case of a Mississippi man suspected of killing a Tennessee woman and her teenage daughter and fleeing with her two younger girls as authorities charged his wife and mother in connection with the abduction.

As an intense manhunt for Adam Mayes and the two young girls continued, his wife, Teresa Mayes, and mother, Mary Mayes, were arraigned in a Hardeman County, Tenn., courtroom. Teresa Mayes, 30, was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and Mary Mayes, 65, was charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

Teresa Mayes told investigators she drove Jo Ann Bain and her daughters from Hardeman County, where they lived, to Union County, Miss., where Adam and Teresa Mayes lived with his parents, according to an affidavit filed in court.

An attorney for Teresa Mayes declined to comment Tuesday afternoon. Calls to the attorney assigned to Mary Mayes were not immediately returned.

Bond was set at $500,000 for Teresa Mayes and $300,000 for Mary Mayes.

The bodies of 31-year-old Jo Ann Bain and 14-year-old Adrienne Bain were found last week behind the mobile home in northern Mississippi where the Mayes family lived. The affidavit provides the first clue that the victims may have been killed soon after they were abducted. It says Adam Mayes' wife and mother saw him digging a hole in the yard on April 27 or soon after.

Alexandria Bain, 12, and Kyliyah Bain, 8, were still missing, and neighbors were planning a candlelight vigil for the girls Tuesday evening.

The FBI said Tuesday authorities are hopeful the two are still alive, but did not elaborate. The affidavit said some items belonging to the two younger girls had been found at a trailer rented by Adam Mayes in another part of Union County.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Teresa Mayes' sister, Bobbi Booth, said her sister told her last week that she knew about the killings, but Booth said she thought Teresa Mayes may have been too scared to call the police.

"Teresa started to call, text and Facebook constantly on Thursday," said Booth, who gave an earlier interview to WMC-TV.

Booth told Teresa Mayes to call the police and was assured she had, but by Saturday Booth had become suspicious about that claim and called police herself.

"I told them exactly what she had told me: Who the bodies were, where they could be dug from," Booth said.

As it turned out, investigators had begun digging in the Mayes' backyard the previous day.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kristin Helm said she was unaware of Booth calling about the killings but said she might have called a different law enforcement agency.